Having Wide Feet Isn’t Fair…….

Brought to you, in collaboration with Simply Be.

I think the name of this says it all. I’m one of those people with boats for feet. Really, when I was around the age of 10, I’d hit a size 7 in shoes, and was just touching five foot tall. By the time I was 11, I’d gone into 7.5 and have fluctuated between 7 – 8 over the years, depending on the styles, manufacturers and widths on offer.

In an upmarket shoe shop, they once measured me as having a C width…. I don’t know about their tape measures, but standard shop shoes tend to be around a C to D width, and I’ve hardly ever been able to get anything with a heel on in a D width, unless the manufacturer has been very generous indeed. Perhaps it’s my high instep that throws the width I need off, but I’ve always had to consider good width shoes.

I remember years ago, buying a pair of Sole Diva boots. They were ankle boots, in black suede wedge, and a good height, at around 3 or so inches high. They were like pillows on my feet, and I loved them. Over the years, I’ve tried to find another pair that are similar, but never come up smelling of roses for this. Simply Be asked me to take a look at their ranges for the new season, and the first thing I headed to was the shoe department, for obvious reasons.

I’ve not looked at these for a while, so it was nice to see regular shoes in EEE widths, as well as regular. I’ve tended to live in trainers and fitflops over the last year, but that has to stop as I go into a new business venture for the future. I do need footwear that will be a little smarter going forward.

These look quite comfy for standing about all day in, and cool enough to go with jeans on black trousers.

I’m very much a jeans with sandals girl in summer, and jeans and boots girl in winter. Perhaps I shouldn’t say girl, given my age, but you know what I mean. I also think it’s important for brands to design for women, not just for very skinny, boyish figures, which is why I’m not surprised that there are several online shops now that have good clothes, in a range of sizing. For jeans, at the moment, I seem to very between brands, ranting from size 8 to size 12, depending on who makes them.

The one thing I’ve learned over the years, from being all sizes of clothes, is that if a size 10-12 model on the larger clothing ranges doesn’t look good in something, then it’ll look ten times worse on me. I go for things I like the shape of, and try them.

These jeans have a great shape, and at £28, for a shape I like, is good value. I tend to pay for shape rather than brand with jeans, which I think many of us middleaged people do.

Brought to you, in collaboration with Simply Be. Opinions are my own, and not reflective of Simply Be.

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Comments

I was delighted to see your item on the joys of having wide feet. I too am blessed with a high instep and EE width feet. I remember a young man who worked for me years ago saying that I have Barney Rubble feet which everyone found highly amusing at the time but was actually quite apt. This term has stuck with me over the years. Obviously I don’t bother looking at the cheaper footwear as experience has proved this to be a waste of my time. My curse is compounded by the fact that I wear size 3 shoes and many shoe ranges start at size 4 as for the silver mules featured in your article which I would have loved to try out. I have had huge problems finding shoes in my size that look good and can be worn for more than five minutes without becoming painful and when I do find a pair I tend to hold on to shoes that fit and wear them until they take on the shape of my Barney Rubbles and have to get the heave ho. Winter is always the worst when I need to wear full shoes or boots so I am eagerly awaiting the fine weather when at least I can bring out the open sandals and fit flops giving me less pressure points to create blisters. I really enjoy your blog by the way.

I tend to call mine sausage feet, but Barney Rubble feet is more apt… I have running shoes that I had to cut the sides of to fit them comfortably. When I was younger, finding size 7-8 shoes for women would be what it’s like finding size 2-3 nowadays, with hardly any choice. Over the years, size 7-8 has become very normal in shoe shops, but they almost all used to stop at around 6.5, and the odd 7 in sturdy brogues until I was in my twenties. I remember the difficulties finding any shoes to fit at all.

I’ve found some success with fitflop, though the sizing can be difficult with the boots and shoes, and I wear those until they fall apart, but they have some great options for wider feet in boots and shoes. Some styles are too narrow, so I have to go for the ranges with a generous fit, and they seem to last me for years. The problem is, that sometimes, we want something a little cheaper for a change of shoe or fashion, and it’s not an easy thing to find with rotten wide feet.

Good luck. Your search is doubly hard, and thanks for the lovely comment.